Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 19, 2013

A Rainy Night in Cape Girardeau

Ever wonder why car ads always show wet roads, but it’s never raining? It’s because all the reflections are REALLY neat. This is southbound on Kingshighway south of Broadway. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

I had to make a run to UPS to send a thumb drive full of photos to the Athen (OH) Historical Society and Museum. When I stopped by there last month, I left off a bunch of photos I took when I worked in Athens back in the late ’60s and early 70s. Friend Jan and I had barely gotten out of town when curator Jessica Cyders pinged me to ask if I thought it would be possible to put together an exhibit on the Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning I shot in 1968 by February 27 to cap off a Black History Month conference. Since Jessica and Danielle Echols were doing to do most of the heavy lifting, I agreed.

I’m flying out to speak to the group at the end of the month, and I’m busy putting together a show catalog right now. It’s neat that someone thinks my old stuff is worth sharing.

Tuesday I’m supposed to speak to a historical preservation class at Southeast Missouri State University. I threw in a lot of new Cape-specific stuff this afternoon, so what I say is going to be as big a surprise to me as it will be to the class.

Stop light at Pacific and Independence

After I dropped the drive at UPS, I decided I’d drive around looking for rain art. Photographers always thought life was unfair. Reporters did weather stories by calling the weather bureau, digging out clips about the Last Big Storm and, if they could be bothered, looking out the windows. Photographers had to get their shoes muddy.

Old Traffic Bridge

Downtown was kinda blah, so I stopped by what remains of the old Traffic Bridge.

Since I retired, my new contract says that I don’t go hungry, get wet or lift heavy objects. These photos were all taken from inside my van with the heater running.

Haarig or Good Hope

The wind and rain were really whipping from the south when I paused on Good Hope looking west toward Sprigg. It was coming across the road in sheets.

Pacific looking south from SEMO

I figured I’d better scope out where I’m supposed to be presenting Tuesday, so I went up Pacific to the Carnahan Building. On the way back I tried to capture the rain coming up the street and down the hill. These are the times I envy the TV guys with their video. It’s tough to get across the concept of driving rain in a still.

Through the windshield

When an oncoming car lit up the water droplets on the windshield, the camera’s autofocus thought that’s what I wanted to shoot. It’s neat, and I’m glad it happened, but it wasn’t my target.

February 18, 2013December 1, 2015

Mistletoe, Lewis & Clark

Friend Jan would have fit right in with Lewis and Clark. While she was here, we took a run over to Thebes and Cairo. Along the way, she started spotting huge clusters of mistletoe. I noted that she did NOT suggest we get in close proximity to it, particularly in regards to standing underneath it.

Her keen eyes put her in good stead with Lewis and Clark, who noted in their journal that on November 20, 1803, they were near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. “They left from mooring on the Ohio side. They went seven miles, and noted much mistletoe hanging from trees. Lewis noted they had seen even more along the Ohio, increasing toward the mouth of the Ohio.”

Louis Lorimier had a bad day at the track

Nov. 23 – Stopped at Cape Girardeau to see Commandant Louis Lorimier. He found Lorimier at the racetrack. The race was just over and Lorimier was busy for some time settling disputes about the bets. Lorimier lost four horses on the race, worth $200.

Actual money was scarce. Main trading was done using such as horses, worth $50-200, cattle $8-10, cotton $100/ton, lead $80/ton. The settlement had begun eight years earlier and now had more than 1,000 people. Lorimier’s district went from the Grand Bend of the Mississippi north of the confluence, to Apple Creek which forms the north boundary of Cape Girardeau county, and 60 miles westward to the St. Francois River.

Cape people “sober, temperate, laborious and honest”

Nov. 24 – Left Cape Girardeau at 7 a.m. A crewman who had left to go hunting two days earlier hailed them from the other shore and they picked him up. He was much fatigued with wandering, and somewhat indisposed.

“People of Cape Girardeau have uniform character of sober, temperate, laborious and honest. Have erected two grist mills and a saw mill.”

February 17, 2013August 28, 2015

New Hamburg’s Catholic Church

The first thing you see when you come into New Hamburg from the east, west or south (and, maybe the north, too) is the St. Lawrence Catholic Church.

It, like the Guardian Angel Catholic Church in Oran, is an impressive structure, both inside and out.

Ornate inside, with a story

Shy Reader, who says she visited there practically every other weekend when she was growing up, shared an interesting tidbit: “The story I heard was that at the time the Catholic church was stripping its churches of statues, altars, etc., the folks at Hamburg took down the statues and hid them in barns, etc. Then, when the parish decided to restore the church, these idolic “geegaws” made their way back. Nice story, but not sure it’s true.”

Sign outlines history

I like the part where it says the congregants were required to donate $5, or deliver eight wagonloads of stone, or take off every tenth day to work on building the church.

How it got its name

Edison Shrum, who wrote The History of Scott County, describes how the church was named:

In 1847, church activities were transferred from Benton to the present site of New Hamburg. Here, services were held in a renovated poultry house on the Wendolin Bucher farm until a new log church was built in 1848 on 3 acres donated by Mr. Bucher. In 1849, more land was obtained adjacent to the new church property and soon a school was functioning as part of the yet unnamed church.

As more new immigrants arrived, the church became too small and in 1857, plans were drawn for a larger and better church which was to be built of stone, 80 feet long ,”excluding the choir” , and 50 feet wide. The new church, modeled after St. Nicolas Church in Schirrhein was completed in September, 1858, and it was time to name the church. The parishioners had many different ideas for a name which resulted in violent arguments.

Finally, Mr. Bucher settled the arguing by stating “…enough of this quarreling! Are you not ashamed of yourselves? Now I will put a stop to this. I gave the land, and I shall name the church in honor of the patron saint of my son, St. Lawrence.” So, the church was named St. Lawrence.

Graveyard

The graveyard behind the church contains many old and impressive stones. I’ve always had a weakness for ones that contain photographs of the deceased.

The FindAGrave website lists 675 interments in the cemetery.

Photo gallery of St. Lawrence Catholic Church

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to mover through the gallery.

February 15, 2013

Marcescence or Not?

I stumbled across an interesting leaf thing, then I stumbled across what might or might not explain it. I don’t dabble in plants. I have a very simplistic view of nature. I divide animals into two camps: ones that I can eat and ones that can eat me.

Even though Wife Lila has a fascinating gardening blog (worth checking out, I have to say), I divide the plant world into two camps, too: weeds and not weeds. How do you tell the difference? You chop ’em all down. The ones that grow back are weeds.

Leaves were stark white

Having said that, I stopped to take a picture of this bush / tree / weed along the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad tracks south of the Allenville Diversion Channel bridge. It was the only thing around that held onto its leaves and they were a stark white.

It just so happens that I saw a story that explained what might be going on here. It’s a long piece, so I’m going to send you directly to the Northern Woodlands site for the whole drink of water. Bottom line is that different trees shed their leaves differently.

First trees were evergreens

The first trees on the planet were evergreens, Northern Woodlands points out. They appear to be green all the time, but entire age classes of needles die, turn brown and drop off every year. “On the other end of the spectrum are deciduous trees [like the birch, maple, cherry and aspen], which seem to drop their leaves all at once after a pigment party every fall.” I like that phrase. I’m probably going to steal it one of these days.

The story continues, “But then we have a third class of tree in beech and oak that seems to represent a middle ground of sorts between evergreen and deciduous. Their leaves die, but many don’t fall when they die. Botanists call this retention of dead plant matter marcescence.”

It goes on to explain why there might be an ecological advantage to being the last guy on the block to go naked, but I started tuning out. If anybody knows what the white-leaved thing is, let me know.